Contents

Why Fighting Happens

Fighting happens for many reasons.

The most common reason is rivalry. Clique members will normally attack a member from a rival clique on sight. For example a Jock will attack a Nerd on sight if the nerd is the near the gym. Also clique members will attack another student if that student is fighting a member of the same clique. Cliques are more aggressive when on their own turf. Nerds, for example, usually get along fine with non-clique students but may try to insult or push them around in front of the library, and the Bullies will shove a Greaser if he wanders out of the auto shop and into the school parking lot. Jimmy can start a fight by jumping on someone, but if this is done, the trouble meter will not fill up. If it is done to adults, they will shove him.

Fighting also happens when a weaker student sometimes stands up for themselves against an antagonistic student such as a Bully, which then causes the bully to attack. Sometimes the reverse happens where the student picked on will attack the bully, but this is very rare.

Another, less common reason for fighting is jealousy. If a person sees someone they have recently kissed kissing another person, they will attack. This is also the only way you can get two girls to fight.

Random fights can spawn anywhere on campus.

Fighting Styles

Each clique and some students have their own unique fighting style. Excluding Jimmy, all peds can use a running strike with a melee weapon, which knocks most students down.

When Jimmy first arrives at Bullworth, his default fighting style is a boxing style using a relatively simple combination of right and left hooks. When grappling, he makes use of two close-in punches - one to the face and another to the belly - followed by a knee strike. He also has a running shoulder tackle and a grappling take-down followed by a series of punches. In addition, he can throw an adversary to the ground and kick them, or pin him to a wall and knee him in the groin. Although they do not count as individual moves, most of Jimmy's attacks have a 'light' and 'heavy' version, the heavier being used if the player controlling Jimmy holds the button instead of just tapping it.

The gut slug, which is not mentioned in the manual or an in-game tutorial, is executed from a standing grapple, and is unlocked after completing Gym 1. After delivering a light first punch, execute a heavy second punch.

During the course of the year, Jimmy learns various martial art and wrestling techniques. He can counter Russell's powerbomb, Hal and Norton's bearhug, and Juri and Luis' wrestling moves by repeatedly hitting a specific button depending on the version of the game.

He also has the opportunity to gain access to every projectile weapon used in the game, including two (the Super Slingshot and Rubber Band Ball) that are only available to him.[1][2]

Defensively, Jimmy can block most attacks by putting his arms up and guarding with his forearms. As long as he is blocking, most attacks don't hurt him, even those that appear to hit an unprotected part of his body. However, some stronger attacks can break his guard - in other words, causing him to flinch backwards while his arms are knocked away from blocking position. A few rare attacks go through Jimmy's guard entirely. Guarding isn't effective against weapons. Jimmy can also counter some grappling attacks if the player rapidly presses a button. The player is instructed to do this during the boss fight against Russell, but it works outside the boss battle and against other attacks.

During the early game, Gary uses the same flailing punches fighting style of the Bullies, although when grabbing an opponent, he can throw a straight punch to the face (like Chad, Bryce, Bo and Casey) or a knee strike. He blocks very often during free roam and has a large life bar, behind only Russell, Bif and Damon. During his boss fight, he uses straight punches, a kick to the groin and a knee to the gut.

They use a brawling style where they throw two wide swinging punches, followed by either a kick to the midsection that briefly stuns the opponent (and if hit twice in a row, knocks the opponent down) or a third punch which breaks the guard. If they grapple an opponent they will throw a gut slug that drops their opponent, sometimes taking them down, or simply pushing them back. If they grapple an opponent to the floor, they will either punch their opponent, or use the face spit bullying move that Jimmy uses, which results in an instant KO, regardless of health.

Davis has his own style, which is used in The Setup. It's the same as the average Bully's style, but he has more control on his attacks, such as throwing a single punch. Most notably, however, he can sprint even faster than Jimmy.

Russell uses the same fighting style. However, his massive strength causes his attacks to do a lot of damage. He also uses a powerbomb from a grapple when fighting. Defensively, he is more adept at blocking punches than most students, he cannot be grappled with (which means he cannot be stuffed in a locker or thrown in the trash), and he possesses more stamina than any other character in the game, even the police officers. During his boss fight, Russell uses many Pro Wrestling moves. He uses a Back Fist, a Clothesline and a Double Axehandle in addition to his usual Powerbomb. From a distance, he attempts a Battering Ram on Jimmy. About two thirds of the way through the fight he either automatically tackles Jimmy and tries to put him in a Boston Crab which does continuous damage, or gets an automatic Powerbomb grapple. He always reverses knee drop attempts during his boss fight. During the mission Complete Mayhem, Russell loses his immunity to grapples.

Russell has an unused style. Here, like in his boss fight, he thrusts his chest out, which knocks most students down. He also uses the bully's punches, but they are more damaging, and the effects of each punch are different, with the last punch also knocking most students down.

Sometimes a bully will use weapons such as wooden planks. Davis and Wade will sometimes make use of a slingshot.

The Nerds are the weakest fighters in the school. Most of them have smaller health meters than Pedro De La Hoya and Sheldon Thompson. They are almost guaranteed to never block and are very unaggressive. None of them use grappling moves. Earnest Jones is the nerd with the biggest health meter, whereas all the skinny nerds are the weakest of the clique, having life bars only slightly bigger than those of the girls.

Earnest, Bucky Pasteur, Cornelius Johnson, Donald Anderson and Thad Carlson use the same fighting style. They throw awkward, darting punches, slap wildly at the air, and occasionally trip as they push their opponent. Algernon Papadopoulos uses a very similar fighting style in which he leans back in his fighting stance, whereas the skinny nerds lean forward. He also can't work up the running speed to use the falling push attack.

Melvin O'Connor and Fatty Johnson share a more effective fighting style. They use a heavy slap, shoulder barge, belly bounce combo. In Scholarship Edition, they only use the slap and shoulder barge. For this reason they are considered to be the toughest nerds, though they have smaller lifebars than Earnest. Although the style looks clumsy, the second-to-last move in the combo breaks the guard and the last move knocks most students down. In the beta version, the second attack was meant to be a butt slam, and the belly bounce was a grapple attack.

The Nerds will frequently use weapons when fighting. Specifically, they may use stink bombs, firecrackers, the bottle rocket launcher and the spud gun. Thad and Cornelius tend to use a ruler when fighting. When using weapons the Nerds have infinite ammo, but knocking them out causes them to drop their weapon, giving Jimmy an ammo refill.

The Preppies are a fairly tough clique. All of them are trained pugilists, and use many styles of Boxing. Unlike the rest of the cliques, when they fight they dodge and counterattack. Except Bif, all other Preppies will throw eggs when fighting from a distance.

Gord Vendome and Tad Spencer share a freestyle boxing style and use their footwork to step back to avoid punches. They use a four hit combo of two jabs, and a left hook followed by a charged punch which knocks down most opponents. They occasionally use a heavy uppercut instead of the charged punch, which breaks the guard and can be used alone. They will use each of these punches separately, either jabbing or doing two-hit combos. From a distance, they will use a shoulder barge, which breaks a guard, and a hard right hook.

Justin Vandervelde and Parker Ogilvie use a normal boxing stance and throw either a strong body blow or a jab followed by either two body blows (the second body blow breaking the guard), an overhand right cross which goes through a block and knocks anyone but the toughest students down, or an uppercut strong enough to drop anyone. On occasion, they duck to avoid punches and counterattack with either the aforementioned uppercut, a body blow, or a low hard hook that, if successfully hit, will be followed by a 4-hit combo (2 strong body blows, 2 hooks) that stuns their opponent. Originally, they were meant to backstep just like Bryce and Chad after throwing body blows.

Bryce Montrose and Chad Morris are the Preppy grapplers. They use a philly shell defensive style, and are slightly tougher than the other four. They mainly use a double kidney punch combo and a straight punch followed by a light overhead punch (both of which break a guard) while backstepping or crouching to avoid punches, as well as an overhand cross, much like the one Justin and Parker use. They also use what appears to be a taekwondo front kick (except they take a step before throwing it rather than from a standstill) that knocks anyone down, including the toughest students - after hitting the kick, they do some weird fists drumming. From a grapple, they will use either a gut slug, a straight punch to the face or a knee strike - both attacks knock the opponent down - and if accompanied by other Preps, they will get behind their opponent and hold their arms to give the other Preppies free shots.

Bif Taylor uses the same stance and style that Gord and Tad do, but he is more aggressive and he more regularly dodges to avoid punches. He also doesn't get knocked down by any moves other than the overhead punch and is usually immune to being grappled by anyone who is not authority. His life bar is the second largest in the game, equal to Derby's and behind only Russell's.

All Preps in their boxing uniforms use the same style as Bif, Gord and Tad, but like Bif, they are immune to grapples and falling, and are a lot better defensively than their normal counterparts. Bryce is strongest of them all, while Chad is the weakest.

In boxing matches, all Preps use a style consisting of two straight punches followed by a hard, upwards hook, a body blow that looks similar to the one Juri and Luis use, and a sliding punch from a distance. They'll often dodge punches and counter with a body blow.

Most of the time, Derby Harrington uses exactly the same style as Bif, and even has exactly the same health meter. During his boss fight, however, Derby uses unique moves. He assumes the same stance as Bif and uses his combo in addition to all the moves Parker and Justin use, except that he uses the 5-hit combo as a normal attack (which means he doesn't need to dodge first to perform it) and he includes their uppercut after the combo. He jumps back similarly to Bryce and Chad after throwing a body blow. Defensively, he uses Jimmy's boxing evades and counterattacks, though the effects of his punches are different, and a unique block. He also has two unique punches, a rabbit punch and a mean left uppercut, similar to the last punch of the 5-hit combo Jimmy learns from the Hobo. He is generally immune to grapples except during his boss fight.

The Greasers are a fairly tough clique. On average they are slightly tougher than the Preppies, although none of them aside from Johnny are a match for Bif and Derby, nor do they dodge. They have three different fighting styles among them, all based on various martial arts. All of the Greasers except Norton, Hal and Johnny can punch downed opponents in the stomach similar to when you kick someone if they are down. Out of all the cliques, they are the ones that block with more regularity.

Lefty Mancini and Vance Medici have a fighting stance that looks similar to Muay Boran. The strikes they use are hook punches, sometimes in a combo, and a kung fu roundhouse kick. When they throw the kick, their arms go out to the sides, which is bad technique. From a grapple, they use a knee to the kidney and then a straight punch that knocks the opponent down. From a distance, they also use a straight, charging punch, which knocks most opponents down, as well as an unblockable roundhouse kick aimed for the kidneys.

The medium sized Greasers, Lucky De Luca, Peanut Romano and Ricky Pucino, use what appears to be a Muay Thai kickboxing style, attacking with a low roundhouse kick, jumping kick to the midsection which knocks an opponent backward, and a knee strike which can knock down even the toughest students like Russell and Bif, while throwing out hooks in combos of two or three. The medium sized Greasers are also the only ones who make use of the slingshot for ranged attack.

There is an unused beta style. It consists strictly of Lefty's/Vance's first punch, sometimes followed by the mid-sized Greaser's knee strike. However, this style deals more damage.

Norton Williams and Hal Esposito are the Greaser grapplers. They have a fighting style more similar to street wrestling, making them the two toughest members of their clique behind Johnny himself. They use a punch combination of a hook followed by a wide swinging uppercut. Both punches break Jimmy's guard, and the uppercut knocks most students down. They also use a savate front kick that breaks the guard, and knocks down anyone it connects with. From a grapple, they pick an opponent up for a bearhug that does continuous damage, and if it isn't broken they will eventually slam the victim to the ground for extra damage. The bearhug can be countered by pressing a button. If accompanied by other Greasers, they will hold their opponent's arms behind their back to give other Greasers free shots. When they have someone pinned to the ground, they will just punch them. Their front kick is powerful enough to drop even large tough students like Russell and Bif. They can also counter being pushed, tackled or grabbed by Jimmy by putting him in a headlock and twisting him to the ground in a pin where they proceed to pummel him. They are both tough enough to survive a single body shot from the spud cannon, although a head shot knocks them out.

Norton attacks Jimmy with a sledgehammer during the mission "The Tenements". He has three attacks: an overhead swing, a swing from the side, and a spinning swing. While he can't be dropped, he also can't block either.

Johnny Vincent has a unique fighting style. He can grab his opponent by the neck to throw a haymaker which knocks anyone down; this attack can't be countered. He has a unique triple punch combo, consisting of two jabs - one with each arm - and a left hook. He will occasionally use a stronger variant of these last two punches, breaking his opponent's guard with the hook, and following it an axe kick which takes an opponent down. It is possible to block the kick, but the hook must be avoided, and the kick will still go through a block provided Johnny is close enough. If the kick connects, he grinds his foot into his victim's head and spits on it. This combo is powerful enough to knock out most Nerds with the kick alone. He also incorporates his fellow mid-sized Greaser's punches, as well as Lefty and Vance's two kicks and charging punch. He has a sizeable amount of health effectively making him one of the toughest students. During the mission "Finding Johnny Vincent", he is immune to grapples. He is also the only clique leader who uses the same fighting style in both free roam and his boss fight. Johnny has an unused stance (seen in Wrong Part of Town when harassing Cornelius) and several unused moves and combos: A combo consisting of a low front kick and a middle front kick followed by either a spinning back heel kick or his signature axe kick. His two power moves are a jump hook kick and a tornado kick.

The Jocks are a very tough clique, and probably the most dangerous in the game, due to numbers: it is not uncommon for Jimmy to find himself fighting six or seven of them at once, including the highly aggressive and very tough Damon West. All of the Jocks use the same shoulder tackle attack as Jimmy (unlike all the other school clique members who throw running punches) and have grappling attacks. However, they seldom block, and do not have any kind of ranged attack. They display three distinct fighting styles.

Casey Harris and Bo Jackson use a boxing style punch combo, consisting of two hooks followed by a charged cross, capable of hitting anyone in its way; it deals no damage to either its intended or accidental targets, however. All three punches slightly stun the opponent. From a grapple they use the same moves as the Preppy grapplers. If accompanied with other Jocks, they will hold their opponent to give other Jocks free shots. There is an unused shoulder barge attack in their style, which deals a large amount of damage and can knock anyone down.

Luis Luna and Juri Karamazov are the Jock grapplers. They use pro wrestling moves. Their main attack is a three hit combo ending with a polish hammer. The second hit will break Jimmy's guard and make him stumble, so unless he dodges one of the other attacks the third will knock him down. In Scholarship Edition and some PS2 versions, they only throw the second guard-breaking punch followed by the polish hammer. From a distance, they use either a shoulder tackle attack or, most of the time, take their opponent down with a running tackle. They can use a knee drop in addition to the regular punch that other students use. From a standing grapple they both use the side slam. Juri also uses a scoop piledriver, and Luis uses a move called a spin-out powerbomb. They can also hold their opponent, like Casey and Bo do. Like Norton and Hal, they can counter being pushed and reverse grapples. Along with this, they can survive a spud round, and are defensively more apt at blocking punches than all the other jocks, with the only possible exception being Ted Thompson.

Ted Thompson, Damon West, Dan Wilson and Kirby Olsen use a combo consisting of a jab, followed by an elbow strike and a jumping uppercut which breaks the guard, and knocks most students down. They only use their left arm to perform the combo. From a distance, they will use a football tackle, which takes down whoever it hits, even characters who are normally immune to grapples (however, grapple-immune characters will immediately push them off and get back up if hit with it). After hitting the football tackle, they will either knee drop the opponent or just punch them. Despite being a clique leader, Ted normally doesn't have a unique fighting style in the game. Damon has a very large life meter, and while he isn't as skilled a fighter as some other characters or immune to grapples like Russell and Bif, his toughness makes him one of the most dangerous fighters in the game. Although extremely aggressive, his biggest weakness is that he never blocks. Their knee drop is identical to the one Jimmy learns in Gym 3.

Bob has a unique fighting style. His fighting style is mostly the same as the Non-Clique students, although he uses the Townie headbutt from a schoolboy press. If he's set to use a grapple from a standstill, he uses Hal's/Norton's bearhug, a straight punch, and a knee to the face.

During The Big Game, Damon, Casey, and Bo have a unique style, which consists solely of the football tackle. After performing the tackle, they grab their opponent by the legs and throw them into the air. It doesn't do any damage, however.

Ted has an unused beta style. Not everything is known about it, but he uses the same punches in his normal style, as well as the football tackle, though the tackle in this style has a minor animation glitch. The most notable things about this style, however, are his block, which is similar to the one Derby uses, in that he can effortlessly block any of Jimmy's attacks, even if they are powered up, and that he can evade any projectile thrown at him. He also recovers quickly from the very few attacks from different styles that can break his guard.

The Townies, including their leader Edgar Munsen, all use the same fighting style - a kidney punch, jumping knee, double axehandle combo, and all Townies excluding Jerry and Gurney use a clothesline, which knocks anyone down. Like the Jocks, they also use the shoulder tackle attack. In some versions of the game, all the Townies use the clothesline. None of them aside from Gurney and Jerry use grapples, although rather than standing grapples, they only use running tackles, following them with a headbutt - unique to them - or a knee drop instead of the punches everyone else uses. Gurney and Jerry sometimes throw firecrackers from afar, and can counter being pushed from a grapple, similar to Juri and Luis.

The Townie fighting style is the most damaging of all the cliques, and they're very aggressive when fighting. For that reason they're considered to be the toughest clique. However, their health, even for the bigger Townies, is about the same as the average Greaser's health.

Edgar has slightly more health than Damon but less than Bif. All the other Townies are about average in toughness. Even Omar, the Townie second in command, isn't any tougher than the rest of the Townies except for when Jimmy has to receive the key to the Chem Plant. In his boss fight, Edgar attacks Jimmy with a water pipe. His attacks with it consist of a running strike, two sweeps, an overhead and an upwards swing. If he is using his style but is not holding a pipe, he cannot attack, but he has an unused counterattack. Due to the attack being in an unfinished state, the animation is glitchy. However, it is presumably a blow to the stomach, as it stuns whoever is hit by it.

In Bully, the double axehandle move that the Townies use goes through Jimmy's guard, damaging him and knocking him down. In Scholarship Edition, the difficulty of the Townies was toned down, and anyone can block the axehandle.

While interred in the Asylum, the townies have a different fighting style. They fight from a crouch with the Mascot's punches, and they will sometimes jump onto their opponent, wrap their legs around them to hold on, and then bite them. Jerry and Gurney were meant to have the bite attack as well, but this was canned.

The Non-Clique students aren't aggressive and will almost never start a fight unless they are provoked first. They're the second weakest students after the Nerds. Even if they do attack, Jimmy can sometimes cause them to run away from him by taunting them. Most of the non-clique boys use the same style, straight punches and shoves. Ray Hughes' fighting style consists only of shoves, but his shoves damage even a blocking opponent, whereas the shoves other Non-Clique students use break the guard. Unlike the other cliques, the punches Non-clique students use can hit anyone on their way, even if they don't intend to. With the exception of Constantinos, Sheldon, and Pedro, they are immune to being knocked down by any attack aside from the overhead punch.

Constantinos is as weak as Sheldon, and Pedro. However, when Constantinos fights Jimmy while dressed as the Mascot, he has a unique fighting style. He uses the bullies' wide swinging punches (but with the punches connecting with the knuckles), a field goal kick to the groin that goes through a block, and a headbutt that also goes through a block and knocks Jimmy down.

The prefects never engage in fisticuffs and are trained in using a restraining technique to bust students. They bust students by grabbing them at the back of their shirt collars and then grappling them to the ground by the throat. Once a prefect has a student on the ground, he will keep them pinned to the ground by their collar. They will break up fights with a running punch before trying to grapple. Most students, including Jimmy, can break away from the prefects, with either a shoulder barge, a stomp to the foot, or a groin grab. However if the student is in serious enough trouble (trouble meter in the red), the prefects will bust them automatically the moment they gain a grip on them.

The prefects' ability to automatically bust someone, coupled with the fact that any attack on them puts Jimmy's trouble meter in the red, makes them nearly impossible to fistfight successfully. They are not immune to grapples, and can be stuffed in lockers and trash cans. They can also be fought at range with the slingshot or another weapon.

Perhaps because they are students, prefects have relatively moderate-sized health bars, with Seth's being slightly larger than those of the other three. Their health points were probably carefully determined so that no single attack could knock them out. The most powerful attack in the game, a spud round to the head, reduces them to a sliver of health, but they remain fully combat-capable.

Girls

All the girls, both the younger and older ones, have the same fighting style. It's very difficult to get a girl angry enough to start a fight with Jimmy, although beating enough people in their clique will make them angry. One sure way to make one attack him is to point the camera at her while she's already angry or if Jimmy has bad faction. Also, if you spray a tag which is offensive to the girl's clique, she will attack you. Attacking a girl causes Jimmy's trouble meter to fill instantly.

The girls only have two attacks; a slap and a knee to the groin, which deals a moderate amount of damage. Even Zoe, who is according to various dialogue a good fighter, only uses these two moves. Girls are very likely to run away after connecting with a single hit. They can also be scared off if Jimmy taunts or pushes them; they'll usually run away even if they were actually attacking if this happens. All girls share the lowest health meter in the game.

Girls cannot be grappled. They will automatically knee Jimmy in the groin if he tries, and then run away. They can be hit with the running tackle from behind, however. Girls can't be knocked down by any moves other than the overhead punch. A glitch allows other students to grapple girls if they were aiming for Jimmy and grabbed the girl instead, but they automatically and instantly release them. The only exception is when prefects bust them for being outside after curfew.

If Jimmy is caught by one girl who he's kissed in the past making out with another one, the girls may fight each other by grabbing each other's hair. They'll do this for a few seconds and then run in opposite directions. The offended girl may take either a slap or knee at Jimmy, but she'll run away immediately afterwards, even if the strike missed.

If Jimmy gives a girl flowers and then insults the girl, the girl will slap him with the flowers twice and then run away.

Adults

There are a few different fighting styles amongst the adults and townsfolk.

The male teachers and Edna generally use the same busting technique as the prefects do, but unlike the prefects, it is impossible to grapple with them. The female Bullworth staff try to bust Jimmy by painfully grabbing his ear, and if they successfully bust him, twisting it and hauling him up on his tiptoes. As with male authority figures, Jimmy can escape with the shoulder barge or foot stomp, as long as his trouble meter is not in the red.

Most townsfolk men always attempt a grapple and takedown on Jimmy. They pin him to the ground and try to flag a policeman down. Jimmy (or other students) can escape by pushing them back and then ducking under their legs. However, if his trouble meter is in the red they get an automatic bust like an authority figure. Their running grapple can take anybody down, but if they attempt a bust from a stand-still, grapple-immune characters will reverse it.

Attacking an adult or any authority figure will cause Jimmy's trouble meter to fill instantly.

The men from New Coventry use running punches, hooks like the non-clique students, and grapple attempts. If Jimmy doesn't break the grapple they'll execute the same takedown and call for authority that the other townsfolk use.

The two hobos, Handy and Krakauer, only have one attack, a push where they fall down themselves. They can't grapple, and are much more likely to run than fight.

All male adults, regardless of where they live or whether they are authority or not, will counter a punch with a slap or grapple attempt.

Fenwick uses a hybrid style. When running, he'll use the same grapple and takedown that the male townsfolk use. However, from a standstill, he fights like a townie.

It is possible to provoke a townsman into attacking Jimmy by repeatedly jumping at them. It is also possible to make them attack if you smash up their car if they are driving. If they take Jimmy down in front of an authority figure while his trouble meter is empty, the authority figure will try to bust the townsman.

Women will use the same slap and knee to the groin that the girls do, but their attacks are more damaging and they'll keep on Jimmy until he gets away from them or they knock him out instead of running. Policemen won't try to arrest them for attacking Jimmy.

The Police use the same restraining technique as the prefects. However they are harder to escape from. If a student or an adult is enough trouble, the Police get their bust automatically. Their stats are similar to male teachers, their life bar being equal to Bif's.

Like the other authority groups, the Orderlies never engage in fisticuffs and will attempt to bust people. However their restraining technique differs to the one used by the police, prefects and other faculty. Instead of grounding someone to the floor, they inject them with a sedative. If Jimmy is busted by the Orderlies, the screen goes swirly as he falls asleep.